The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

ELEVEN YEARS AFTER

The King of France was no longer sending adventurers to capture the
outposts of England. He was rather, in despair, beginning to wind in
again the coil of disaster which had spun out through the helpless
fingers of Neckar, Calonne, Brienne and the rest, and was in the end to
bind his own hands for the guillotine.

The Isle of Jersey, like a scout upon the borders of a foeman's country,
looked out over St. Michael's Basin to those provinces where the war of
the Vendee was soon to strike France from within, while England, and
presently all Europe, should strike her from without.

War, or the apprehension of war, was in the air. The people of the little
isle, living always within the influence of natural wonder and the power
of the elements, were deeply superstitious; and as news of dark deeds
done in Paris crept across from Carteret or St. Malo, as men-of-war
anchored in the tide-way, and English troops, against the hour of
trouble, came, transport after transport, into the harbour of St.
Heliers, they began to see visions and dream dreams. One peasant heard
the witches singing a chorus of carnage at Rocbert; another saw, towards
the Minquiers, a great army like a mirage upon the sea; others declared
that certain French refugees in the island had the evil eye and bewitched
their cattle; and a woman, wild with grief because her child had died of
a sudden sickness, meeting a little Frenchman, the Chevalier du
Champsavoys, in the Rue des Tres Pigeons, thrust at his face with her
knitting-needle, and then, Protestant though she was, made the sacred
sign, as though to defeat the evil eye.

This superstition and fanaticism so strong in the populace now and then
burst forth in untamable fury and riot. So that when, on the sixteenth of
December 1792, the gay morning was suddenly overcast, and a black curtain
was drawn over the bright sun, the people of Jersey, working in the
fields, vraicking among the rocks, or knitting in their doorways, stood
aghast, and knew not what was upon them.

Some began to say the Lord's Prayer, some in superstitious terror ran to
the secret hole in the wall, to the chimney, or to the bedstead, or dug
up the earthen floor, to find the stocking full of notes and gold, which
might, perchance, come with them safe through any cataclysm, or start
them again in business in another world. Some began fearfully to sing
hymns, and a few to swear freely. These latter were chiefly carters,
whose salutations to each other were mainly oaths, because of the extreme
narrowness of the island roads, and sailors to whom profanity was as
daily bread.

In St. Heliers, after the first stupefaction, people poured into the
streets. They gathered most where met the Rue d'Driere and the Rue
d'Egypte. Here stood the old prison, and the spot was called the Place du
Vier Prison.

Men and women with breakfast still in their mouths mumbled their terror
to each other. A lobster-woman shrieking that the Day of Judgment was
come, instinctively straightened her cap, smoothed out her dress of
molleton, and put on her sabots. A carpenter, hearing her terrified
exclamations, put on his sabots also, stooped whimpering to the stream
running from the Rue d'Egypte, and began to wash his face. A dozen of his
neighbours did the same. Some of the women, however, went on knitting
hard, as they gabbled prayers and looked at the fast-blackening sun.
Knitting was to Jersey women, like breathing or tale-bearing, life
itself. With their eyes closing upon earth they would have gone on
knitting and dropped no stitches.

A dusk came down like that over Pompeii and Herculaneum. The tragedy of
fear went hand in hand with burlesque commonplace. The grey stone walls
of the houses grew darker and darker, and seemed to close in on the
dumfounded, hysterical crowd. Here some one was shouting command to
imaginary militia; there an aged crone was offering, without price,
simnels and black butter, as a sort of propitiation for an imperfect
past; and from a window a notorious evil-liver was frenziedly crying that
she had heard the devil and his Rocbert witches revelling in the prison
dungeons the night before. Thereupon a long-haired fanatic, once a
barber, with a gift for mad preaching, sprang upon the Pompe des
Brigands, and declaring that the Last Day was come, shrieked:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me! He hath sent me to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound!"

Some one thrust into his hand a torch. He waved it to and fro in his wild
harangue; he threw up his arms towards the ominous gloom, and with
blatant fury ordered open the prison doors. Other torches and candles
appeared, and the mob trembled to and fro in delirium.

"The prison! Open the Vier Prison! Break down the doors!
Gatd'en'ale--drive out the devils! Free the prisoners--the poor
vauriens!" the crowd shouted, rushing forward with sticks and weapons.

The prison arched the street as Temple Bar once spanned the Strand. They
crowded under the archway, overpowered the terror-stricken jailer, and,
battering open the door in frenzy, called the inmates forth.

They looked to see issue some sailor seized for whistling of a Sabbath,
some profane peasant who had presumed to wear pattens in church, some
profaner peasant who had not doffed his hat to the Connetable, or some
slip-shod militiaman who had gone to parade in his sabots, thereby
offending the red-robed dignity of the Royal Court.

Instead, there appeared a little Frenchman of the most refined and
unusual appearance. The blue cloth of his coat set off the extreme
paleness of a small but serene face and high round forehead. The hair, a
beautiful silver grey which time only had powdered, was tied in a queue
behind. The little gentleman's hand was as thin and fine as a lady's, his
shoulders were narrow and slightly stooped, his eye was eloquent and
benign. His dress was amazingly neat, but showed constant brushing and
signs of the friendly repairing needle.

The whole impression was that of a man whom a whiff of wind would blow
away; with the body of an ascetic and the simplicity of a child. The face
had some particular sort of wisdom, difficult to define and impossible to
imitate. He held in his hand a tiny cane of the sort carried at the court
of Louis Quinze. Louis Capet himself had given it to him; and you might
have had the life of the little gentleman, but not this cane with the
tiny golden bust of his unhappy monarch.

He stood on the steps of the prison and looked serenely on the muttering,
excited crowd.

"I fear there is a mistake," said he, coughing a little into his fingers.
"You do not seek me. I--I have no claim upon your kindness; I am only the
Chevalier Orvilliers du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir."

For a moment the mob had been stayed in amazement by this small, rare
creature stepping from the doorway, like a porcelain coloured figure from
some dusky wood in a painting by Claude. In the instant's pause the
Chevalier Orvilliers du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir took from his pocket a
timepiece and glanced at it, then looked over the heads of the crowd
towards the hooded sun, which now, a little, was showing its face again.

"It was due at eight, less seven minutes," said he; "clear sun again was
set for ten minutes past. It is now upon the stroke of the hour."

He seemed in no way concerned with the swaying crowd before
him--undoubtedly they wanted naught of him, and therefore he did not take
their presence seriously; but, of an inquiring mind, he was absorbed in
the eclipse.

"He's a French sorcerer! He has the evil eye! Away with him to the sea!"
shouted the fanatical preacher from the Pompe des Brigands.

"It's a witch turned into a man!" cried a drunken woman from her window.
"Give him the wheel of fire at the blacksmith's forge."

"That's it! Gad'rabotin--the wheel of fire'll turn him back to a hag
again!"

The little gentleman protested, but they seized him and dragged him from
the steps. Tossed like a ball, so light was he, he grasped the
gold-headed cane as one might cling to life, and declared that he was no
witch, but a poor French exile, arrested the night before for being
abroad after nine o'clock, against the orders of the Royal Court.

Many of the crowd knew him well enough by sight, but they were too
delirious to act with intelligence now. The dark cloud was lifting a
little from the sun, and dread of the Judgment Day was declining; but as
the pendulum swung back towards normal life again, it carried with it the
one virulent and common prejudice of the country--radical hatred of the
French--which often slumbered but never died.

The wife of an oyster-fisher from Rozel Bay, who lived in hourly enmity
with the oyster-fishers of Carteret, gashed his cheek with the shell of
an ormer. A potato-digger from Grouville parish struck at his head with a
hoe, for the Granvillais had crossed the strait to the island the year
before, to work in the harvest fields for a lesser wage than the
Jersiais, and this little French gentleman must be held responsible for
that. The weapon missed the Chevalier, but laid low a centenier, who,
though a municipal officer, had in the excitement lost his head like his
neighbours. This but increased the rage against the foreigner, and was
another crime to lay to his charge. A smuggler thereupon kicked him in
the side.

At that moment there came a cry of indignation from a girl at an upper
window of the Place. The Chevalier evidently knew her, for even in his
hard case he smiled; and then he heard another voice ring out over the
heads of the crowd, strong, angry, determined.

From the Rue d'Driere a tall athletic man was hurrying. He had on his
shoulders a workman's hand basket, from which peeped a ship-builder's
tools. Seeing the Chevalier's danger, he dropped his tool-basket through
the open window of a house and forced his way through the crowd, roughly
knocking from under them the feet of two or three ruffians who opposed
him. He reproached the crowd, he berated them, he handled them fiercely.
By a dexterous strength he caught the little gentleman up in his arms,
and, driving straight on to the open door of the smithy, placed him
inside, then blocked the passage with his own body.

It was a strange picture: the preacher in an ecstasy haranguing the
foolish rabble, who now realised, with an unbecoming joy, that the Last
Day was yet to face; the gaping, empty prison; the open windows crowded
with excited faces; the church bell from the Vier Marchi ringing an
alarm; Norman lethargy roused to froth and fury: one strong man holding
two hundred back!

Above them all, at a hus in the gable of a thatched cottage, stood the
girl whom the Chevalier had recognised, anxiously watching the affray.
She was leaning across the lower closed half of the door, her hands in
apprehensive excitement clasping her cheeks. The eyes were bewildered,
and, though alive with pain, watched the scene below with unwavering
intensity.

Like all mobs this one had no reason, no sense. They were baulked in
their malign intentions, and this man, Maitre Ranulph Delagarde, was the
cause of it--that was all they knew. A stone was thrown at Delagarde as
he stood in the doorway, but it missed him.

"Oh-oh-oh!" the girl exclaimed, shrinking. "O shame! O you cowards!" she
added, her hands now indignantly beating on the hus. Three or four men
rushed forward on Ranulph. He hurled them back. Others came on with
weapons. The girl fled for an instant, then reappeared with a musket, as
the people were crowding in on Delagarde with threats and execrations.

"Stop! stop!" cried the girl from above, as Ranulph seized a
black-smith's hammer to meet the onset. "Stop, or I'll fire!" she called
again, and she aimed her musket at the foremost assailants.

Every face turned in her direction, for her voice had rung out clear as
music. For an instant there was silence--the levelled musket had a deadly
look, and the girl seemed determined. Her fingers, her whole body,
trembled; but there was no mistaking the strong will, the indignant
purpose.

All at once in the pause another sound was heard. It was a quick tramp,
tramp, tramp! and suddenly under the prison archway came running an
officer of the King's navy with a company of sailors. The officer, with
drawn sword, his men following with cutlasses, drove a way through the
mob, who scattered before them like sheep.

Delagarde threw aside his hammer, and saluted the officer. The little
Chevalier made a formal bow, and hastened to say that he was not at all
hurt. With a droll composure he offered snuff to the officer, who
declined politely. Turning to the window where the girl stood, the
new-comer saluted with confident gallantry.

"Why, it's little Guida Landresse!" he said under his breath--"I'd know
her anywhere. Death and Beauty, what a face!" Then he turned to Ranulph
in recognition.

"Ranulph Delagarde, eh?" said he good-humouredly. "You've forgotten me, I
see. I'm Philip d'Avranche, of the Narcissus."

Ranulph had forgotten. The slight lad Philip had grown bronzed, and
stouter of frame. In the eleven years since they had been together at the
Battle of Jersey, events, travel, and responsibility had altered him
vastly. Ranulph had changed only in growing very tall and athletic and
strong; the look of him was still that of the Norman lad of the isle,
though the power and intelligence of his face were unusual.

The girl in the cottage doorway had not forgotten at all. The words that
d'Avranche had said to her years before, when she was a child, came to
her mind: "My name is Philip; call me Philip."

The recollection of that day when she snatched off the Bailly's hat
brought a smile to her lips now, so quickly were her feelings moved one
way or another. Then she grew suddenly serious, for the memory of the
hour when he saved her from the scimitar of the Turk came to her, and her
heart throbbed hotly. But she smiled again, though more gently and a
little wistfully now.

Philip d'Avranche looked up towards her once more, and returned her
smile. Then he addressed the awed crowd. He did not spare his language;
he unconsciously used an oath or two. He ordered them off to their homes.
When they hesitated (for they were slow to acknowledge any authority save
their own sacred Royal Court) the sailors advanced on them with drawn
cutlasses, and a moment later the Place du Vier Prison was clear. Leaving
a half-dozen sailors on guard till the town corps should arrive,
d'Avranche prepared to march, and turned to Delagarde.

"You've done me a good turn, Monsieur d'Avranche," said Ranulph.

"There was a time you called me Philip," said d'Avranche, smiling. "We
were lads together."

"It's different now," answered Delagarde.

"Nothing is different at all, of course," returned d'Avranche carelessly,
yet with the slightest touch of condescension, as he held out his hand.
Turning to the Chevalier, he said: "Monsieur, I congratulate you on
having such a champion"--with a motion towards Ranulph. "And you,
monsieur, on your brave protector"--he again saluted the girl at the
window above.

"I am the obliged and humble servant of monsieur, and monsieur,"
responded the little gentleman, turning from one to the other with a
courtly bow, the three-cornered hat under his arm, the right foot
forward, the thin fingers making a graceful salutation. "But I--I
think--I really think I must go back to prison. I was not formally set
free. I was out last night beyond the hour set by the Court. I lost my
way, and--"

"Not a bit of it," d'Avranche interrupted. "The centeniers are too free
with their jailing here. I'll be guarantee for you, monsieur." He turned
to go.

The little man shook his head dubiously. "But, as a point of honour, I
really think--"

D'Avranche laughed. "As a point of honour, I think you ought to
breakfast. A la bonne heure, monsieur le chevalier!"

He turned again to the cottage window. The girl was still there. The
darkness over the sun was withdrawn, and now the clear light began to
spread itself abroad. It was like a second dawn after a painful night. It
tinged the face of the girl; it burnished the wonderful red-brown hair
falling loosely and lightly over her forehead; it gave her beauty a touch
of luxuriance. D'Avranche thrilled at the sight of her.

"It's a beautiful face," he said to himself as their eyes met and he
saluted once more.

Ranulph had seen the glances passing between the two, and he winced. He
remembered how, eleven years ago, Philip d'Avranche had saved the girl
from death. It galled him that then and now this young gallant should
step in and take the game out of his hands--he was sure that himself
alone could have mastered this crowd.

"Monsieur--monsieur le chevalier!" the girl called down from the window,
"grandpethe says you must breakfast with us. Oh, but come you must, or we
shall be offended!" she added, as Champsavoys shook his head in
hesitation and glanced towards the prison.

"As a point of honour--" the little man still persisted, lightly touching
his breast with the Louis Quinze cane, and taking a step towards the
sombre prison archway. But Ranulph interfered, drew him gently inside the
cottage, and, standing in the doorway, said to some one within:

"May I come in also, Sieur de Mauprat?"

Above the pleasant welcome of a quavering voice came another, soft and
clear, in pure French:

"Thou art always welcome, without asking, as thou knowest, Ro."

"Then I'll go and fetch my tool-basket first," Ranulph said cheerily, his
heart beating more quickly, and, turning, he walked across the Place.

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